Team Collaboration Made Easy
Salesforce swallows Slack … try saying that 5 times fast.
Recently, Salesforce bankrolled a purchase to acquire Slack, totaling a whopping $27.7 billion. For now, CEO Stewart Butterfield claims that Slack will, indeed, remain (mostly) independent under the Salesforce umbrella, but that is not to say pricing won’t rise after this acquisition.
If you’re thinking about making a shift to another software, we should talk about the alternatives available, and what would best fit your organization.
Having the ability to create separate chats within an organization, whether it be for different divisions or projects, is one of Slack’s more popular features. If your organization is looking for something like this, you might like Microsoft Teams. If you’re already subscribed to a Microsoft Office 365 plan, you’re in luck — you already have access to this! If not, you can start with the free option that includes essential items such as instant chat and calls. The application takes an organization and allows its users to break into separate smaller teams. Those teams can then be broken down into channels. It also allows users to integrate across all Office 365 products and additional custom app add-ons. The next plan up will run you for $5 per user, per month. Be cautious though, Microsoft Teams can be difficult to set-up and get functioning, so make sure you have administrators that knows their way around these types of technology.
As we all know, Google has dipped its hand into every technology pot available, and collaboration tools are no exception. Google Chat, formerly known as Google Hangouts, main attraction is their thread-based conversations. There, if a new idea is sparked, users can create a thread within their individual “room” to get the ball rolling. Of course, users can integrate Google’s vast number of applications into Google Chat. This makes setting meetings, sharing documents, and of course searching for information, incredibly easy. The downside? There are no free options, that is if your company doesn’t already have a G-Suite account — which start at $5 per user, per month.
Chanty is a simple tool to use, so if you are a small to medium-sized organization, this may be the perfect fit for you. It allows for communication through public and private channels similar to Slack. It also has a feature named Teambook where Chanty organizes team files, tasks, and more. Although it’s a simple interface, Chanty can be connected to countless apps through Zapier. On Chanty’s free plan, Teams are limited to 10 users, but their paid plan starts at only $3 per user, per month. If you have a smaller sized operation, go ahead and give Chanty a look.
Like most of the collaboration softwares, Flock offers diverse chat channels and app integrations. What sets this software apart is being able to create projects, tasks, and company polls. Tired of using zoom or another communication service? Flock has that too. Video and Audio calls can be scheduled and executed within the app, offering a truly complete collaboration environment. Their free version does have its limitations when it comes to messaging history and additional features like screen sharing. Flock is a bit pricier when it comes to their paid plans, starting at $6 per user, per month, but if you pay annually you can bring it down to $4.50. This tool compliments collaboration of any organizations size.
If your team is looking for that office comradery, stopping by a colleague’s desk type atmosphere, then Discord is going to be your best bet. Like other team chats, Discord offers text channels, but the most outlying feature is the always-on voice chat. The audio quality is unmatched, and if you want to video chat, they offer that too. But keep in mind, this software was designed for gaming, so there aren’t a lot of business-specific features. Discord can be more business-oriented when it is connected to Zapier. Discord paid versions are essentially irrelevant if you are using it for business purposes (unless you want to game on the job), so this app is basically free.
Here at Kennedy Rowe, we use Slack ourselves. When the news came out that Salesforce had bought Slack, our first thought was to evaluate the alternatives, in-case we would need to make a switch. Naturally, we wanted to share these options to best serve you. If you aren’t sure what tool will best suit you and your team, let us know and we’ll figure out where to best spend on a collaboration tool.
